Convo Refreshes Its Android App, Launches Chrome Extension

Convo, a social tool for companies to collaborate in real-time, today released new tools for its growing userbase: A Chrome extension, and a refresh of its Android application.

As an app, Convo is something that I’ve known for a long time. Through a chunk of my tenure at The Next Web we used Convo — even back when it was known as Convofy, of all things — and as the company trumpets on its webpage, TechCrunch is also a customer.

In addition to the new tools, which we’ll get to shortly, I spoke with Convo yesterday, who was willing to share a small slice of its internal metrics regarding growth. The company, which raised $5 million late last year, has seen around 30 percent growth in the number of businesses that use its service, from 6,000 last September to 7,800 today.

The company’s senior leadership says they are confident in its path forward, are currently experimenting with its marketing efforts and will look to accelerate its growth. Or, more simply, with oodles of cash on hand, Convo wants to buy growth, but hasn’t yet picked a method.

Now to the new stuff. Convo’s new Chrome extension has two uses: Bringing links into Convo, and preventing you from being late. Once installed, you can quickly click the Convo button in Chrome to send a link to the service, or send over an image and so forth. Almost more importantly, if the page that you are on has already been shared into your Convo experience, it will note that, so you aren’t the chump bringing old news to a real-time environment.

On the Android front, Convo rebuilt its application for less suck. When your changelog includes notes like “100% faster feed scrolling,” you know that a do-over was needed. Search has been improved, along with image viewing, and you can like things from inside your feed, at last. Also included is new gesture support for quicker navigation in-app.

The company told TechCrunch that it sees more iOS than Android usage, which is hardly surprising and makes its Android work interesting. Perhaps we’ll see a Windows Phone app in the future.

Convo, along with Yammer, Jive, and others, are working to lower the amount of email sent inside of companies. Anything that does that I’m in favor of.